


People Like Us

by Writers_Muse



Series: One-Shots (And Two-Shots) ^_^ [20]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged Up, Alternate Universe - Aged Up, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Bonding, Chloé Bourgeois Redemption, F/M, Friendship, Implied Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawkmoth Defeat, Implied Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawkmoth Identity Reveal, Mentioned Gabriel Agreste, Platonic Chlodrien, Platonic Relationships, Post Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawkmoth Defeat, Post Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawkmoth Identity Reveal, Sort Of, platonic friendship, post-hawkmoth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 03:55:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21191147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writers_Muse/pseuds/Writers_Muse
Summary: Adrien and Chloé commiserate over their shitty childhoods, post-Hawkmoth reveal.





	People Like Us

**Author's Note:**

> My first non-love-square-centric fic!  
I started this a while ago and just decided to finish it.  
It's platonic friends Chloe/Adrien bonding over his father's reveal (and defeat) as Hawkmoth.  
Adrinette is implied but not represented.  
Sort-of Chloe redemption

“Well, that just happened.”

Chloé Bourgeois ambled, clumsy and lethargic, over to where a blond man was sitting, bottle of wine in hand. The seated man turned around and back, his legs dangling over the side of the roof of her hotel bedroom-suite’s terrace, his arms hanging loosely out through the railing, elbows resting between the bars. He gave a wry laugh.

“Heh. Yea, I guess so.”

Chloé threw her platinum blonde head back as she took a long swig of wine. Her cheeks punched out like a chipmunk as she pulled the bottle away from her lips and made a face, lowering herself down to sit next to her sunshine-blond friend.

“You know, Adrikins,” she began, though the way she said his nickname was nothing like she had done when they were teenagers. Back then, she would pronounce it in a high-pitched squeal, something bordering on unnatural, and thought for some reason it was cute. Those years seemed so long ago. She let out a sigh and leaned her head on his shoulder. “You’re probably the only person I know who understands what it’s like to be us.”

Underneath her cheek, she felt his shoulders shrug.

“Yea, I guess so.”

Chloé scoffed.

“Is that all you know how to say? Adrien Agreste, I thought your pere raised you better than that.”

It was meant to be light-hearted, a joke, but both of them were aware as soon as the words fell out of her mouth, just how painful that fact was.

“Shit, Adrien, I’m sorry. That was a stupid thing to say-”

“Nah, it’s all right.” He shrugged again, his eyes never leaving the sparkling horizon of Paris at night. Like stars sprinkled out across a black ocean. “You’re not wrong.” This time he turned to her and smiled sadly. “My father’s a stuck up, emotionally stunted prick with a penchant for discipline. It’s kind of fitting that he’s a villain in his spare time, too.” His hair shifted as he looked back out toward the shimmering darkness, falling over his face like waves of sunlight.

Chloé straightened and placed a hand on his arm.

“Hey, we’re kind of in the same boat, right? My daddy doesn’t really know how to love me, either. He just kind of throws money at me. It was fine, sort of, when I was a kid. Now that we’re supposed to be adults-” She nudged him with her upper body, making them both sway. “-it’s a lot easier to realize just how neglected we’ve been, huh?”

A light breeze, refreshingly cool for a midsummer evening, blew gently over them, causing a lock of her stubborn fringe to fall into her eyes. She blew a raspberry, tossing it out of the way temporarily, and lifted the wine that was still in one of her hands. But instead of drinking it herself, she offered it to her companion.

“Wanna get drunk and commiserate about our shitty childhoods?”

Adrien’s mouth quirked a little in amusement, but he didn’t move to accept the proffered wine.

“Nah, I can’t. I told Marinette I wouldn’t be gone too long. She’s been really worried about me since all this happened.”

Chloé rolled her eyes but suppressed a derisive snort, still refusing to lower her hand.

“That trainwreck has been obsessing over you as long as you’ve known her. There’s nothing wrong with needing a little space to get through something she can’t ever relate to.”

“Hey.” His turning was abrupt, his expression bordering on irritation, as his green eyes met hers unflinchingly. “Don’t call my fiance a trainwreck. Marinette’s done more for me than anyone I’ve ever known.” Then he pulled the bottle out from her still extended hand with slightly more force than necessary and pressed it to his lips, tilting it high for several seconds. When he was satisfied, he lowered the bottle to the floor, not letting it go from his grip, and wiped his mouth with the back of his free hand. 

She was always a proud girl, and because she was proud, Chloé tried not to let the hurt show on her face. She shifted her gaze toward the ground below, sniffing slightly. Without even looking, she reached over and snatched the wine back, taking another long drink.

When she set it down again, she still wasn’t looking in his direction.

“I... see,” she uttered haltingly, then awkwardly cleared her throat.

“Ah, that’s not- I didn’t mean it that way, Chlo. You’ve always been there for me, too. Well, most of the time. In your own way.”

He tried to give her a charming smile, but she didn’t notice. Even if she did, she wouldn’t have cared. She probably would have just rolled her eyes and slapped him playfully upside the head, telling him “You know that doesn’t work on me, you nerd.”

As it is, she only gave a rueful half-smile, one that just barely exposed one of her pearl-white canines to the air. There was a glint from her ice-blue eyes, even in the darkness, that spoke of a slight moistening in them. The raised corner of her mouth slowly fell until it was sitting in a grimace. She stared out, unseeing, at the glittering horizon.

“I’m… really sorry. For the part I played. Even back then, I was just a stupid ass-- a lonely teenage girl looking for somebody to validate me. I still can’t believe sometimes that I actually let your pe- Hawkmoth use me. Out of all the douchey things I’ve done, that’s the one I’m most ashamed of.”

She could tell he was turning to face her direction, but she didn’t reciprocate. Instead, she lifted the bottle to her lips again and tipped her head back as far as it would go, welcoming the slightly dry burn as the remaining contents emptied down her throat.

“Hey, hey, hey, cut that out.”

A hand wrenched the wine away, causing some of it to drip blood-red down either side of her mouth to her chin, then drip drip and dribble down her chest and onto her designer shirt.

Oh well. She was planning on throwing it away soon anyway. Maybe Sabrina would want it, if she could get the stain out of it.

Adrien was frowning at her, but Chloé could barely see it through the tears finally blurring her vision. Her lower lip quivered, and she subconsciously reached up to wipe away the brimming wetness that would soon be running over her high cheekbones.

“Adrikins,” she said again, this time in a voice much thicker, much more battered by the fortune life had thrown her way. “I’m so sorry I was the one to find out first. I’m sorry I had to tell you.”

She had never really cared for salt water, no matter what kind of healing properties quacks and voodoo shamans had always said it carried. Even when she would venture to the French riviera, she never entered the ocean. She just sat on the sand, flaunting her good genes. And sweat wasn’t even a word in her dictionary. She’d diet everyday for the rest of her life if it meant she didn’t have to exercise and get all gross and sticky. Her time as Queen Bee was something else entirely.

But now, with the taste of salt contaminating her lips, she couldn’t decide whether there wasn’t something to that old adage about salt water being able to cure anything. She both hated and felt relieved at its sudden intrusion. Perhaps relieved wasn’t the right word. Cathartic.

_ Geez, I may not be a genius, but I know big words, too. _

“Hey, hey.”

Adrien’s arms wrapped around her, pulling her close. Chloé buried her face in his shoulder, eyes falling closed, and sniffed.

She never felt like she could cry before. Her father always panicked and shoved material things her way if he was around. Her mother huffed and told her to stop being so childish. Even crying in front of Sabrina made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable.

But this- it felt right. It felt relieving.

She slumped against his hold, neither sobbing nor attempting to stem her tears, but allowing them to simply be. They flowed gently over the contours of her face and landed on his shirt sleeve with a _ plip plip _.

“Don’t be sorry,” he returned, breaking into her thoughts. “I’m glad it was a friend. I don’t know how I would have reacted if it had been some stranger. To be honest, I might not have believed it. And besides-” Here, he drew back and held her half an arm’s length away. “No matter what you’ve done, you didn’t make him who he is. The only person responsible for that is my father.” 

She dropped her gaze, ashamed to meet his eyes, even though what he said was true. She had participated willingly, and that was something that would burden her conscience for the rest of her life.

Still, she wasn’t as prideful as she used to be. Adrien was offering her an out, and she wouldn’t reject that for anything.

“Thank you, Adrien.”

Her forehead softly came to rest against his upper arm as she delicately leaned in his direction. He laughed quietly, airily, and reached up to ruffle her bright blonde locks, which had at some point transitioned from a perfect ponytail to a disheveled mess.

“Hey. You’re my oldest friend, right?”

A pinky, sticking out from a closed fist, entered her vision. Chloé smiled, a wan, wobbly thing, and straightened, lifting up her own pinky in return.

“Always.”

Comfortable silence descended as they both faced the horizon, Adrien taking a drink from the wine before holding it out toward his companion. She copied his action, then settled back, bottle in hand, and sighed contentedly.

“You know,” she said after a minute or two, “Marinette’s not _ that _ much of a trainwreck. I guess I can sort of see why you like her so much.”

“You mean why I love her?”

She exhaled impatiently and rolled her eyes.

“Yea, whatever, same thing, I guess.”

Adrien chuckled a little but didn’t say anything. He knew how uncomfortable love made his friend, and he knew it had a lot to do with her experiences growing up. It was a bit funny, he mused silently, how, with such similar childhoods, they managed to cope with neglect in completely different ways. Chloé embraced cold detachment and shallow adoration, but found it difficult to truly form an intimate bond with anyone. Adrien, on the other hand, desperately craved genuine love and affection, being so starved of it, and had so much of his own to give that at times he wondered if it was overwhelming for the people around him.

“She’s… strangely good for you, isn’t she?” The question took him off guard, and he turned to face his friend. “You’re kind of perfect together,” she continued, blue eyes meeting his head on. “It’s a bit eerie, to be honest.”

The blond man released an airy laugh, smiling widely like there was some secret he was clued in on but didn’t want to share.

“Oh, you have no idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I appreciate every last hit, kudo, and comment, and I hope you enjoyed this one-shot!
> 
> <3 Muse


End file.
